The ever-estimable Buzzflash asks the pertinent question: Will Laura Bush, renowned campaigner on behalf of the oppressed women of Islam, take up the cudgels for the "Girl from Qatif": a 19-year-old woman who was gang-raped – and has now been sentenced by a Saudi court to six months in jail – and 200 lashes – for the "crime" of being in the car of a man who was not her relative?

Like Buzz, we all know the answer: she will not. At the most, we might possibly see a bland statement of mild, tut-tutting disapproval issued by a minor minion in the State Department, probably during the late Friday, post-deadline news dump. But as for Lady Laura, she will doubtless be too busy overseeingthe next intimate get-together with the Saudi royals, watching with who knows what strange tingly fascination as her husband plants a wet kiss on the grizzled face of King Abdullah, or sits down to chomp barbecue man-to-man with the billion-dollar bribetaker and backroom grease merchant Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud – better known by the nickname "Bandar Bush," bestowed by the president himself in honor of his long-standing connection with America's ruling family.

Saudi Arabia remains a highly personal tyranny: a single word from Bush's smooching partner could spare the rape victim from this savage punishment. These longtime Bush Family business partners and paymasters – who rule their kingdom through repression, mutilation and execution – could use their authoritarian power to reform the perverted, pseudo-religious strictures they have imposed at gunpoint on their people. But they will not – and Laura and George and Babs and old George Humperdink Warbucks Bush will never ask them to.

Why? Because they do not give a damn if a young woman who has been brutally raped is now whipped almost to death by their family friends -- friends who have helped make the Bushes richer and richer down through the years. If the lashing took place in front of their very eyes, they'd simply chat to Prince Bandar about the Cowboys game this weekend or ask King Abdullah if the weather was fine during his last stay on the Riveria. "Sure does scream a lot, don't she?" George might say at some point, provoking a playfully stern wag of the head from Laura for bringing up an unseemly topic during such a pleasant conversation. Then burly guards – American-armed, American-trained – would drag the quivering mass of shredded flesh out of the room, while elegant footmen stepped nimbly around her, bringing in the evening's sumptuous feast.

Oh, no doubt when Laura looks in her mirror at night, what she sees is one of God's little sunbeams, who wants nothing but the very bestest best for every single person on earth. But what is actually there is the visage reflected in countless gilded mirrors of the Establishment elite: a wretched, bloodstained collaborator with evil.

From the International Herald Tribune: A Saudi court sentenced a 19-year-old woman victim of gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes — more than double than in her initial sentence for being in the car of a man who was not her relative, a newspaper reported Thursday...

According to Arab News, the court informed the rape victim that her sentence was made harsher because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media." Three judges from the Qatif court had initially sentenced the woman to 90 lashes, convicting her of violating Saudi's rigid laws on segregation of the sexes...

At the time of the attack, the woman was identified in the media only as the Girl from Qatif, coming from the country's Shiite minority. The court also banned the woman's lawyer from defending her, confiscated his license to practice law and summoned him to a disciplinary hearing later this month.

"I explained to them that it was my job to do everything legal in order to serve my client. But they did not listen," the lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem, was quoted by the paper as saying.

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Wow, everything has to be tied back to Bush, huh? You're stretching it a little bit here. It was the judge who ordered this punishment, not the Saudi royals. And to blame the actions of another country on our president's wife is a bit far-fetched.

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Not always mentioned in posts on this subject is the fact that the man in the car was also gang raped and subsequently sentenced to 80 lashes of Islamic "justice." Apparently, the man's lawyer did not make the mistake of upsetting the appellate judges by drawing attention to the fact that the Saudi courts and government are run by barbaric animals.

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That makes no sense. Especially to call the title "Bush family friends flay rape victim". It's like saying that Clinton was personally responsible for every execution during his term as president. Of course he wasn't because there are different levels of government, even in Saudi Arabia. Why not say this sentence is the judge's responsibility, instead of Laura Bush? Besides, word is that even the Saudi people are shocked by this punishment. Here's hoping the public outcry forces the judge and his punishment out.

Sham Filter
It only "makes no sense" if one is writing from a position of complete ignorance about the Saudi system, its intimate connection with the American elite and its special relationship with the Bush Family. I doubt very much you are as ignorant as you pretend, so I assume you are one of the many "concern trolls" who dip in from time to time to damp down criticism of the Dear Leader. And hey, that's fine, if it keeps you off the streets.

But assuming you are ignorant as you seem, shall we spell it out for you? Saudi Arabia is a monarchy; the King appoints all the judges, and he and his royal family perpetuate the system that doles out punishments like this. Would you say, "Well, Hitler wasn't to blame for this or that particular murder of a Jew, because there are different levels of government, after all." (Or substitute Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Saddam Hussein, if you like.) No, you wouldn't say that, because even someone as ignorant as you are pretending to be would recognize that these leaders instigated and/or maintained a system that produced such atrocities as a matter of course, as part of the ordinary business of the state. You wouldn't let Hitler off the hook; so why let the Saudi king off the hook?

Likewise, even the dullest dullard would condemn a leader who cozied up to Hitler -- who invited him to his home, kissed him on the mouth, did lucrative private business deals with him.

So what is so hard to understand here, O Mr. Brave Anonymous One? I'm an American; when the leader of my country crawls under the bloodstained sheets with tryants like this, then it offends me, it taints the honor of my country, it makes me sick, and I speak out about it. If that makes you feel all wiggly, then I'm real sorry about that. And if you want to weigh in against my viewpoint, feel free. But do spare us the sham stupidity: "Duh, how's the Saudi king reeesponsibull fer sech a verdick? And whut's the preznit's bidness deals got to do with it? It jes' don't make no sense tuh me."

Nurse
If Bush asked the Saudi royal family to intervene, they would certainly do so. They are the ultimate authority, not the courts. Some of you have the courts in Saudi Arabia mixed up with OUR courts!! The Saudi royals pander to the lowest common denominator in their society, as they know they are a stone's throw away from being deposed. Does this make you think of the Republican Party?

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Wow, someone doesn't take to well to criticism of their article. And I have no idea what a "concern troll" is. All I do know is that far from being a dittohead conservative supporting "the Dear Leader", I came across your article doing a simple news search of this subject. It just struck me as amazing how many ills in this world are supposedly attributed to "the Dear Leader" (your words not mine).

Bush is responsible for what he has done, and he does bear responsibility for some ills in this world. But to proclaim Laura Bush as somehow responsible for this injustice is as far-fetched and hard to understand as a Dennis Miller analogy.

I can tell by your attempts at eloquence that you fancy yourself someone "shutting down" this upstart who dares question your article. I doubt very much you are as smart as you pretend to be, so please spare me your sham intelligence. It's obvious that it has been tweaked not so slightly by your vitriolic hatred for Bush and everyone related to him.

Yet, getting into a flame war with you was not my intention when I came across your article, so I'll leave it at that.

P.S. Also what's with the all the gay references to Bush? I counted at least three between the article and your response. Not that there's anything wrong with that (thanks Seinfeld), but for someone who espouses the views you do, it just seems a little insecure.

If There Were Shari'a Law In The USA, Laura Wouldn't Have Killed That Boy In Midland
because she wouldn't have been allowed to drive, and therefor could NOT have t-boned the boy who took her cherry and left her, in that dusty, one-light intersection, him with that other filthy hussy and all. Her foot slipped..it jis' did!

Laura Bush indeed caused a dead in here college time by driving drunk.
Of course the family bailed her out! This is not fake or a lie it is prooven and you can find it on: http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...e685a.htm.

Also Barbara Bush lost a Baby Girl and both of them had nothing to do than to play golf on that day. The Baby Girl was burried on behalf of her grand mother - after 3 years.

...more to say about the morals of the Bush family? They are bad merciless people.

Floyd was the editor of Science & Spirit, an Oxford quarterly journal dealing with the contentious relationship between science and religion. His work there included interviews with such thinkers as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker, Frans de Waal, V.S. Ramachandran and others.

He's also been a harsh critic of the Bush administration for a number of years... even while the trade center buildings were still warm not long after 9-11 when it was really not very popular to be critical at all. So he knows the spiderweb of relationships and ties between the Saudis and Bush clan quite well.

As for your limp stab at psuedo-psychologizing Floyd - here... go read some more of his work at www.chris-floyd.com (some 3000 articles to choose from). When you figure Floyd out - please come back and explain him to us in detail thanks.

Hypocrites
It's no good the USA or the UK getting uppety about the atrocious way this rape victim is being treated.

I am also a rape victim. My rapist has taken me to the secret Family Court for the past 6 years, for "parental rights". It has been a dreadful, traumatic experience, and I have even been threatened with prison. The law in the UK allows rapists to do this. It is legalised stalking. There are women in the USA in the same situation as myself. We should not have secret family courts at all in a so called democracy.

As Jesus said, take the log out your own eye before removing the speck from your brother's.

Wow, the title is really a stretch of logic
At first I thought it was an article outlining how the Bushies personally knew the rapists or families of the rapists. Not so, but another so called writer who doesn't give the readers anything new or insightful. This isn't even an article at all, since it weaves the most thinly stretched 'connections'. Even liberal Democrats will scoff at this nonsense.

bush's reaction
sure good to hear so many Americans are also outraged by the saudi's so-called justice system, and yes bush's reaction is important, as he seems hell bent to continually fawn all over them ...